Are they the only company that can magically transform 48 hours into more than a week?

Date 26.01.11: evening
Time on hold: ~10 minutes
Conversation ~20 minutes
After 20 minutes spent trying to disconnect and reconnect every possible connection “Sorry, we can't solve your problem from here. Technical services will contact you within 48 hours in order to resolve the problem”
“Have a nice night”

Date 28.01.11: afternoon
Time on hold: ~15 minutes
Conversation ~5 minutes
Correction Cablecom: “Oh, no it's not 48 hours it’s within two working days, but don't worry they work Saturday until noon and they will surely be in touch tomorrow.”
“Have a nice day”

Date 31.01.11: morning
Time on hold: ~10 minutes
Conversation ~5 minutes
Correction Cablecom, “No sir, it's not 2 working days, its 3 working days. However, if you don't receive any call before 15:00 please call us back”
“Have a nice day”

Date 31.01.11: afternoon (16h)
Time on hold: ~10 minutes
Conversation ~5 minutes
Discussion Cablecom: “Hold on please, I'll put you in contact with our technical service sub contractor directly.”
Technical services: "There is a technician who will be in your area to fix a problem for one of your neighbors this evening; normally this should also solve your problem. He will contact you once he has taken care of the other problem to see if everything is OK, if not he will fix a meeting time for tomorrow."
“Have a nice day”
Result: No, the problem wasn’t solved and no the technician did not call.

Date 01.02.11: morning
Time on hold: ~10 minutes
Conversation ~5 minutes
Correction Cablecom: “No, the delay time isn't 3 working days, but can be up to 5 working days”
“No I'm sorry, but it's not possible to fix a meeting date with our technical service department, you have to wait for their call.”
“Be sure to call us if you haven't received any reply by Thursday”.
“Have a nice day”

Date 02.02.11: No contact from Cablecom or their technical services

List of financial impacts
1) My wife was not able to work at home her usual one day a week.
Commute = 0.65 CHF / km X 100 km X 2 = 130 CHF
2) Online payment of the bills for January not yet possible.
Late fees = ??? CHF
3) Au Pair in touch with family and friends in Spain via mobile instead of internet for over a week.
100+ CHF
4) Family communication via mobile instead of e-mail / internet (mostly to France and the USA)
100+ CHF

Other difficulties:
1) Required to be reachable by phone each minute of each working day on the off chance that the mythical technical services department actually does call
2) Required to go outside / leave the mobile phone outside in order to make / receive calls since the mobile signal doesn't pass through the walls of our house

If you are truly exposed to such an extent, shouldn't you be on a business tarriff with business levels of support and SLA's ?

Nice first post-rant.

A quick search of EF would show that trusting your financial future to Cablecom is folly.

What is actually wrong??

Good question (will have to look into that).
My only defense is that when I 1st signed on with Cablecom I didn't have an Au Pair, was using Sunrise for telephone and internet and my wife wasn't working one day a week at home.
We switched everything to cablecom when we moved house and up until now the service has always been there so there was no need to question the level of support.


Ahh, as to that I'm afraid that only the wonderful wizard of Cablecom can answer that question.

I guess maybe I should go out and look for a wicked witch of the north to slay and get a hold of her ruby red slippers in order for him to take me seriously.

The point is that if your internet connection worked and now doesn't there are people on EF who could suggests solutions. But if it's a secret between you and Cablecom, that's fine...

Cablecom will say, about your incidental costs, that they could have been avoided (if they actually bother).

Nobody forced you to use a mobile for communication.

Ideally, you would have considered a solution such as PAYG mobile internet to work around the issue. Best you'll get from Cablecom is a refund for the time the service was not available.

So what is broken?

I'm actually not looking for a refund, I just expect them to be honest from the start and say that it could take up to a week before the support service gets in touch or that they have to wait a week before they can give me the direct number of the support group (like they did today).

Saying 48 hours, then 72 hours etc is more frustrating thank knowing from the start that it will be a week.

As to what is broken. Basically the "ready" light on the cable modem is not indicating ready despite the fact that the send and receive are active.

They tried everything they could do "software" wise and determined that a physical intervention was required.

Yes, I have tried relocating the modem, changing cables and all the normal things, but nothing has worked so I think it's either "time for a new modem" or a connection issue in their lines.

we've had nearly the same kind of problem with cablecom. They say they'll call back, but dont. They usually said "someone will call you tomorrow".

We'll simply switch providers once we have everything sorted.

Unfortunately for me switching providers would mean paying to have a normal phone line connected to the house, replacing the cable connections in the house with phone connections, etc.

I think the better solution for me (as was suggested by another user) will be to pass to the buisness tariff for phone and internet in order to get the 24 hour support.

Just a rap-up to communicate the real problem:

An interface card had to be replaced due to a network frequency change.

1) A network frequency change that was planned
2) They knew that the change would impact certain clients

Q: Was this fact communicated to the clients before the change?

A: No

Q: Did their helpline communicate the fact that there has been a change to the network and that this might be the cause of my problems?

A: No

Q: Did they really need to wait a week so that my "technical problem" became a "priority" so that they could then give me the phone number of their sub contractor so that I could then schedule someone to come to my house for 5 minutes in order to change the card?

A: NO (Especially since the "technical problem" was caused by them?)

So to add to the list of others who have come before me:

Cablecom review:
Quality of television, internet, phone services = Good
Pricing = Good
Customer service = Bad

Nothing that hasn't been said before, but it bears repeating as maybe (slim chance) it will make them do something about it.

I have Internet working but Postfinance keeps giving some error when I try to access my e-bills list. Making it hard to pay there bills. Neither do I receive notifications by email as requested. Silly Cablecom.

I'm pretty certain issues with your PF have absolutely nothing to do with your internet connection - from Cablecom or from any other provider. The issue is more likely your PF account, settings, cookies or email account.

Well, they said it was not available because of technical difficulties but hasn't returned yet.